Apple Pay Gets Singapore Banks’ Support Amid Expansion Efforts

Only a little more than a month after launching in Singapore with only American Express support, Apple Pay now has five of the country’s major banks on board. Accounting for over 80 percent of the MasterCard and Visa cards issued in the country, DBS, OCBC, POSB, United Overseas Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank all now support the mPayment platform.

It’s part of broader effort to quickly expand the global reach of Apple Pay. Speaking to TechCrunch this week, Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey asserted that her company is “working rapidly in Asia and also in Europe” to bring the service to “every significant market Apple is in.”

The Singapore banks’ support validates Apple’s increasingly successful strategy of launching its mPayment platform solely with Amex support in countries in which more traditional banks are slower to come around to the platform, seeing it as a rival. The same strategy was also deployed in Australia and Canada, with major banks in both countries recently having come around to supporting the platform.

Meanwhile, pseudo-rival Samsung Pay, which isn’t compatible with the Apple devices needed for Apple Pay, continues to play catch-up, having announced plans for a Q2 launch in Singapore immediately after Apple Pay’s debut in the country.